“You put lipstick on a pig! ” Ann

That is what she would say about my choice of paint for the house. I put lipstick on a pig.

This is my house…our house I still say most of the time.  It is not pretty, but we had grand plans to make it so. It is about 130 years old, and we can trace someone being here from about 1887 forward. One of the plans we had was to have the house vinyl sided, but they are asking near 25k here for siding, and it is just not worth putting that kind of money on this old house. The siding there now is asphalt siding that cannot be decently painted. I am sure there is wood under that, but who knows what condition it is in.

This is what it looked like when we bought it in 2018

I think it has more character now. The porch was actually the ramp that was built by Habitat for Ann to come home from the hospital. At my sister’s suggestion, I made it into a porch last spring, and this spring it was stained. Lu, the dog who does not know she is a dog, and I spend a lot of time out there.

It looks much bigger than it is. The upstairs on the left is a small sewing/craft room and a nice sized guest room. Those two rooms are only the size of the dining and living rooms, which they are above. The rest of the upstairs in attic, complete with odd and creepy things that would make a good separate blog.

This was a religious shrine when we bought the house. It now houses a hanging basket and a rooster brought from the mountains. We planted asparagus when we first moved because we were told the soil was so sandy that growing asparagus was a cinch. Bullschmidt. Some animal ate all but two….see them? I figured if they lasted through the carnage, they deserved to be left alone.

Another rooster from the mountains. They have both adapted well to the long and hard Michigan winters.

The blue in the distance is Lake Michigan, just three or four blocks away.

You can thank me. I had a very long continuation of this where I described, in detail, the layout of the house now and historically. (It has been added onto at least three times, making all the dang walls load bearing.) I deleted it because it even bored me.

I have a second topic to cover, but I will make that my next blog. I need to do it in the next couple of days because it is time sensitive. You see, I want to buy a riding lawn mower, and basically I want it to ride around town. Now you see why it needs a second blog? Maybe tomorrow.